Dayton Post Game Thread

[FreeKlaiber]

When/ Will Danny see that we don’t have athleticism overall or height at guard to defend no help man in your face which Hurley wants to play. He needs to tone down HIS defensive identity and get it to fit our roster construction. Mahaney was able to play defense for 2 yrs at St marys.

You have to adjust as a coach. We can get taken 1 on 1 at every spot every game if we leave lesser athletes on island without Clingan behind them. We arent a defensive man lockdown team and wont be this year with our roster. Press some? Sag off our men? Play help D? Zone some? If you give up athleticism for BbIQ you have to fit your personnel. Concerns me with next years recruits athleticism as well if we don’t adjust.

 

[LoyalFanCT]

just wait a few games, we will be on top

 

[uconntoatl]

 

[uconntoatl]

I'm hoping the lack of proper prep time maybe sorta explains the debacle of the last 2 games. I refuse to believe we are really this bad of a team, but perhaps reality is gonna smash me in the face very soon.

 

[NC_Uconn_Fan]

We are going to be a bubble team all year, it is what it is unfortunately. Unless our defense gets significantly better, I'm not too optimistic. What a disaster.

 

[AdamaNation]

I don’t see how we turn it around with this roster. It’s quite clear we don’t have enough athletic ability: You can’t play 3 shooters (Karaban, McNeeley, Ball)) together since none can drive and all are subpar on defense. When you add to that that we have a starting center who can’t post up or rebound or guard without fouling and the fact that we have no experienced starting point guard, you get what we’ve seen.

What is very scary is that we’ve recruited all the same type of players next year,.. all excellent shooters who lack athleticism. Individualply each is very talented and It’s great to have a couple of those guys on the roster but you can’t have your entire roster be like that. You need some athletes!

You can’t be great every year and we have been spoiled. It’s crazy to be complaining, but no one would have thought we would be this bad. it’s pretty obvious this team will struggle all year, and it’s pretty obvious why, We are slow and one dimensional. People still thinking Ross and Ball are pros are crazy. They are college bench players At best .I hope we focus on more time for Nowell, Stewart and Abraham and grab some athletes in the portall for next year. Learn from your mistakes. We are becoming the type of soft basketball team we used to laugh at and dominate

How did Hurley and staff get this job? They. Clearly have no ideas what they are doing or how to assess talent vs role and need. Blah. Blah. Blah.

 

[Connecticut13]

I remember Fanta saying a week back that our strategy was to funnel players to the basket to our shot blockers. No - it’s just that our guards are abysmal at playing any sort of defense.

 

[cellocgg]

At least It'll be funny looking back at this in a few years. "Remember when we entered the Maui Invitational at #2 and went 0-3?"

 

[UConnSwag11]

It's was a bad 60 hours.

Unfortunately us fans are held to the five year rule of not being able to whine for five seasons after a championship.

Reality needs to come fast for the players. It has to he an 8-9 man rotation. And Nowell ahead of Mahaney has to be the hard conversation.

Samson Johnson left Maui with 13 fouls and five rebounds.

Karaban and McNeeley can't alternate games of not making shots.

Players have to learn to play defense with their feet and not their hands and realize it's rarely good to commit fouls 30-35 feet from the basketball.
They got punched in the face three days in a row- coaching staff included. Time to see how they respond.
Have a Happy Thanksgiving.

Hurley’s toughest decision is who is going to play over Johnson.

Reed is starting and will play as long as he can. I would play Stewart at the 5 or Karaban at the 5 and Stewart at the 4.

 

[djct1999]

feels like Hurley decided Jaylin wasn't as good as Solo and JRoss a couple months ago and won't budge from that position despite Jaylin looking like a better player than Ross. I do not understand the lack of minutes for him

I would argue Jaylen is the sophomore with the most upside.

 

[REB1094]

Just watched a replay. Did not have fun. 1 possession game with 7:21 left and we lost by 18. Shoutout to Dayton for shooting 50-40-90 as a team, that’s insanely efficient

The good -

• That first half stretch for Karaban (4 straight threes) and that second half stretch for Diarra were really fun
• Don’t kill me for this, but Liam found good shots. He’s either tired or still hurt, but those shots will lead to more 10 point performances than 0 point performances
• Ahmad Nowell is our best defensive player. We need to fast track his offensive development

The bad (limiting myself to just 3 again) -

• Defensive rotations are still comically bad. Every time Dayton went into a ball screen, I knew they were getting points out of it
• We have no perimeter defense. Every single guard and wing player except Diarra and Nowell is playing horrible defense
• Nobody wants to score. We run great sets, great screens, great movement, then suddenly there’s 7-10 seconds left and nobody has even looked at the rim. No Newton or Cam to bail us out this year

On the Karaban flagrant - not sure what he is supposed to do. Guy jumps into him when the ball is already in the hoop. The live call from the announcers was offensive goaltending. Turns into a F1 foul on the defense

In Maui, teams shot 30-55 (54.5%) from three and we got out-shot from the FT line 98-48. You will lose most games if you give up those numbers

I still have faith. Clean up the defense and the offense will come. No worries about bodying everyone en route to a 3 peat because we won’t even be a top 25 team next week. Our record right now is in the Seton Hall/Villanova tier of the BE

There’s too much talent on this team to hover around .500. I think we’ll see things get better soon. Happy Thanksgiving and let’s go Huskies!

 

[Hunt for 7]

Rebuilding year. Thankfully we have our best class ever coming in next season.

If they all stay committed…..that does change

 

[freescooter]

If I hear one more UConn fan complain about the foul disparity, I am going to tap their heads to a television monitor and force them to watch our defense on a loop.

We do not have one player, save Diarra, who even approaches competence defensively.

Also, I really love when teams have point guards because when they don’t, they lose to Dayton by 500 points and finish last in Hawaiian tournaments.

Someone had a pre-season thread on what was most worrisome about this team. I said replacing Newton at the point and replacing Clingan. But Newton was the biggest loss. Watching our guys now, we didn’t even try to replace him. Hurley’s famed motion offense is nothing without someone to run it.

 

[cellocgg]

If they all stay committed…..that does change

This was my biggest worry after the game

 

[NickDanger]

Doubt this was your opinion a month ago.

Another Hurley denier? I’ve got a list going….

Please stop using “X denier” for anyone who disagrees with you about X!

 

[TyroneShoo]

Reed and Johnson are your 5‘s. There is length there to mix in some zone. intentionally funneling things to a 7’2” wall that isn't there anymore seems silly... and I doubt that is what is happening. They are just not as good on the perimeter. Newton, Castle and Spencer were very strong defenders. These guys are not. Newton was able to buy beer a right after Novas last final four ended. For perspective, McNeeley (who is NOT the issue) wasn’t able to buy spray paint the summer before the one we just had.

 

[CONN78SEJ]

Rip it down to the studs.

No one but Karaban and Diarra deserve minutes.

I’m so angry at the lack of fight.

Refs took every bit of Hurley’s thunder this week, and f them for that. I’m not blaming them, but they made us a spectacle, and we we were outnumbered 2 to 1 of FTs across the tourney.

I’m not overreacting because we will figure this out….but this group better get out of the clouds, they’re the 6th best team in the big east AT BEST right now.

Felt like I went back in time to the KO era this week.

Gross.

Vegas and betting money rules, used to be just the NFL, now it’s all over college sports. There are dirty cops, dirty judges, dirty politicians, dirty presidential candidates, and there are dirty referees.

 

[Doctor Hoop]

No idea how they’re teaching the guards to defend on the perimeter. But from the wing you can’t get beat baseline with no shot blocker behind you. Over and over we gave up gaps from the wing. Out top you can’t square up five feet off the ball and flat footed. Any competent ball handler can get you off balance and beat you to a spot, and that happened repeatedly yesterday.

The D will improve if, and only if, Ross, Ball, McNeeley and Stewart figure out how to keep their man in front of them. Diarra and Nowell seem to do it better but there’s always room for improvement.

And Johnson. How many dunks by Key last night off PNR with Johnson doing the high hedge? His hedge doesn’t deter or force deep the ball handler, it’s useless. And no defensive rotation from the wings to cover.

On offense it looks Keystone Kop-ish, halter skelter hoping for an opening, rather than creating one. It’s true that we shot 3’s particularly badly, but 3’s are best when you create penetration first (see above).

There’s a lot of work to do DH and associates. Get to it, no time to count rings.

 

[BugsyCT]

Worst Hawaii trip since Bobby Brady found the taboo necklace.

Was no surprise we lost to Dayton tonight. After Colorado it was very apparent that right now this is a very flawed & vulnerable team. D is non-existent. We had an embarrassment of riches the last 2 years with dominant teams but this collection of players is a far cry from those teams. This is a work in progress. DH has to coach them up and find the best formula that works otherwise many more losses are on the way. Hurley has to own this and fix this. We’ll have a target on our back all year so the challenge will be that much tougher.

 

[freescooter]

My wife wants me to add carrots to the stuffing. Do carrots go in stuffing? I’m afraid.

No NO NO! Stand your ground on this or next year it will be Tofurkey!

 

[Tdaley]

Could not have predicted this meltdown in my wildest dreams. Maybe the most troubling stat in this game was getting demolished on the boards.

Neither of our starting forwards are great rebounders. Both of our centers are so so rebounders. None of guards rebound much. Last year our starting center as a very good rebounder. He also got help with two big guards who hit the very boards well. This year's team doesn't play much defense and is awful at fighting for the rebounds.

 

[1999GoodSon]

Common sense prevented me from seeing the game live at 2 am with the house filled with hungry travelers, and I didn't major in math, but there's this factoid from the UConn blog that explains the loss pretty clearly - "Dayton was 27-30 from the charity stripe on the night, while the Huskies were just 7-11."

There's a good team in there somewhere. Now the important stuff. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

 

[TheHorde]

Happy Thanksgiving everyone. P.S. I’d love a Soto to the Red Sox announcement today to ease the pain lol.

 

[BPT2Storrs]

When all three teams shoot 50+% and have 50 more FT attempts then you, you will likely not be successful.

At the end of the day we had momentum game 1 against Memphis - you take away the technical and who knows how this week shakes out.

 

[CheshireCat]

This is already turning into a Brady / Belichek thing. Hurley can’t win without Clingan…maybe there is some truth to that, but the Hurley antics are back in full force and putting a target on your own back isn’t gonna help anything.